The 1980s were unkind to Johnny Cash. By this decade, his fifth as an icon, he lived somewhere between legend and relic. He failed to connect with new audiences and had his relevance with core Country fans had been eclipsed by Outlaw Country and Crossover Country, two genres he substantially created. His label of thirty years, Columbia Records, had lost faith in him as a reliable commercial concern. And, most notably, he had become so addicted to and unhinged from his addiction to pills that, in 1983, he would spend over a month at the Betty Ford Clinic. It would be another decade before Rick Rubin initiated the Johnny Cash Reclamation Project. In 1984, Cash recorded a lightly humorous and entirely sad parody single and video called “The Chicken In Black,” about the singer having his brain replaced by the brain of a bank robber and his own brain being lent out to a singing chicken. It’s a creative nadir that Cash tried to write off as a “fuck you” to his label, but the facts suggest otherwise. The truth is that Cash was desperately searching for a new identity. He was unmoored. In the “Chicken in Black” video, Cash actually wears bright yellow and blue. Just consider that.

Nevertheless, Cash remained prolific throughout the decade, touring and recording. Unsteady on his own feet, he leaned heavily on the partnership of others. He was propped up by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, who joined him in The Highwayman and also wrote some of Cash’s finest songs from the era. He released a disappointing album with his Sun Records cohort, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. He released a semi-solid album with Waylon Jennings wherein Waylon was the solid half. He was sustained, in part, by his faith. But, more than anything, he was propped up by June Carter and his family. For quite some time, The Man in Black was a familiar and kindly ghost, himself being haunted, while he searched for new forms and homes to inhabit.

In 1985, Johnny Cash released his last album for Columbia. He left with a whimper. He basically vamped with side projects and Gospel music until 1987, when he released his first album for Mercury Records, “Johnny Cash is Coming to Town.” Cash’s stay with Mercury was relatively brief and unheralded. Since his death, there have been re-releases that include a trove of unreleased material from this time as part of an effort to shine a light on a relatively unexplored period. “Johnny Cash is Coming to Town” is considered the high water mark from this era. Upon return visit, the water was only waist high and pleasant, but decidedly safe. In fact, Cash may have even been wearing floaties.

Johnny Cash was constantly searching -- for great songs, for great performances, for partnership, for love, for God, for peace. That searching nature is part of what helped him endure the 80s and rediscover his voice and music in his majestic 90s denouement. In the early 80s, he divided his search between Gospel Music and the songs of younger songwriters, including Bruce Springteen and Elvis Costello. This would, of course, presage his turn on “American Recordings.” In 1987, he was sober and eager to find his new form. Mercury teamed him back up with Jack Clement, who had engineered some of Cash’s earliest singles, and an ace band of Nashville’s finest. Steadying the star from behind was Waylon Jennings. Drenching him with love from all sides were June and the Carter family. At the center, excited nut unsure, was Johnny Cash.

Some have referred to “Johnny Cash is Coming to Town” as a “return to form.” That is true only in the sense that most of the album, save for the slightly 80s Blues guitar of "Heavy Metal (Don't Mean Rock and Roll to Me),” is sonically rooted in the later 60s or early 70s. In most every other way, though, the album would be better described as “safe” and “comfortable.” The highs are rather low and the lows are rather high. But, in the middle, the singer sounds healthy and insulated, if still searching.

The album opens with the biggest risk on the record, a cover of Elvis Costello’s “The Big Light” from “King of America.” A double time Country Swing song, dressed up with horns, cheerleaders for singing back-up and Cash’s version of Elvis’ T.C.B. Band, the song helps us imagine a different version of the Man in Black. A Vegas version wherein the band and pageantry get bigger as the body and voice get smaller. The band sounds good on this track. Maybe too good, as they bury the singer a bit. Fifty four when the song was recorded, Johnny Cash was sober but he was not quite healthy and the speed of the song gets the better of him. Though he is trying his darndest to sound contemporary, the singer sounds almost out of breath. It’s a daring and fun opener, but it is also the last risk that the album takes.

“The Ballad of Barbara” and “I’d Rather Have You” are the two songs on the album written by Cash. The former is a fable, tucked into the rolling, Country, “Boom Chicka Boom” sound that Cash excelled at. A well sung, well told story about a Country boy who moves North and East to the big city and falls in love with a woman who ultimately becomes steely and impenetrable like the skyscrapers around them. Cash recorded the song nearly two decades earlier and had chart success with it. The second time around it sounds fuller and more confident, but no more modern or relevant. “I’d Rather Have You” is less of a song and more of a talk-sung paean to June over a subtle bass-line, some kazoo and Jew’s harp. It is sweet, if unnecessary.

Twice on the album, Cash gets nostalgic about his musical roots. On "The Night Hank Williams Came to Town,” he shares vocals with Waylon as they recount the fervor of that night their hero came and played in their home town. Complete with lap steel, upright piano, backing applause, hootin’ and hollerin’, Jennings gets the better of the song that has the feel of a Country Swing novelty. On "W. Lee O'Daniel and the Light Crust Doughboys,” Cash lovingly remembers the Texas Swing radio shows of the 30s and 40s. Less than three minutes, the song is not much more than a memory and a footnote for a radio host and a band that endeared Cash but was forgotten to the rest of the world. 

“Let Him Roll” is a Guy Clark song, tailor-made for Johnny Cash. Like the child of Hank Williams and “Tangled Up in Blue,” the song rolls through the story of a could-have-been who became a sad and lonely drunk all on account of the prostitute he loved, but who wouldn’t have him. The chorus follows his funeral procession back to Dallas and, eventually, the camera finds Alice, the tearful ex-prostitute standing at the back at the ceremony sobbing. The song swings a bit. It has the narration of Folk. It chugs as it rolls. Johnny’s voice is mixed forward but sounds deep and full. It’s not a great song. But it’s the sort of Johnny Cash song that could play at any stadium, dance hall, state fair or prison in almost any decade.

Finally, there are two Country Gospel tracks, “Letters from Home” and “My Ship Will Sail,” that have big, sentimental choruses and are soaked in Carter women vocals. They both function as church or church camp singalongs, the former being perhaps too honeyed and the latter simply pretty, if boring. 

Following barely thirty minutes of new recordings of ten, mostly old songs, Cash was unscathed but still searching. His debut for Mercury was in no way a hit. It peaked at number thirty six on the Country Music charts. But it was also in no way an embarrassment. The artist that so evidently loved to make music and loved to tour was stuck between comfort and discomfort -- between hesitance and curiosity. Over the next five years, he would continue to collaborate frequently. There would be another Highwayman record. There would be “Water from the Wells of Home,” an album entirely of duets. There would be another Elvis Costello cover. Though there was no regression, the progress would be slightly incremental. When the decade turned, Jon Langford of the Mekons produced a Cash tribute from Indie and Post-Punk artists. In 1993, Johnny Cash closed the U2 album “Zooropa,” with “The Wanderer.” Then, lovingly and mercifully, Rick Rubin called with the idea for “American Recordings.” And the searching was over. Johnny Cash was found again.

by Matty Wishnow